Friday, June 05, 2015

Crux homo news: Responsible? Catholic?

David Gibson, "SF archbishop: Gender transitions are a threat to faith" (Crux, June 3, 2015), has emblazoned across its top that Vanity Fair photo of "Wannabe Caitlyn," which leaves me feeling contaminated and repulsed whenever I see it. It reminds me a little of the androgynous image of Satan in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.

What's disturbing, I think, is the twisting and perverting of the natural male image into something it's not and really cannot be -- a phenomenon that must delight the Evil One to no end. J. Budziszewski, in What We Can't Not Know, calls this unmaking of nature, this distorting of the natural order God made, "Goetia," a Greek word for a kind of diabolical ancient sorcery.

LEAD: Amid the national buzz over transgender celebrity Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner revealing her new female identity, a leading culture warrior in the Catholic hierarchy has denounced the spread of “gender ideology” and warned that it threatens the very foundation of the Church’s faith.

LATER: Cordileone did not mention Jenner by name, but his comments landed directly in the middle of a national debate.

“Young people — even young Catholic people — are already on board with LGBT issues,” he said. “So even as the director of campus ministry, what could Father Hall have done or said that could have influenced them any more positively than they already are?”

BURIED, these gems:

In 2011, he resigned as president of Hudson Catholic Regional High School in Jersey City after he was charged with driving while intoxicated after being involved in a traffic accident.

Before he was dismissed from Seton Hall, Hall taught a course called “Spirituality and Sports,” which explored the Catholic tradition through athletics. He is enough of a sports fan to have posted on Twitter, shortly after revealing that he was gay, “Thanks guys! It was actually tougher to Come Out that I’m a Jets fan than this. THAT was embarrassing!”